


This is Not a Children's Story (No One Says I Love You)

by Goethicite



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: 5 Things, Bittersweet, F/M, Love Is for Children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-05
Updated: 2012-08-05
Packaged: 2017-11-11 12:40:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/478643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goethicite/pseuds/Goethicite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She doesn't care to know what love feels like, because this thing hurts enough without.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is Not a Children's Story (No One Says I Love You)

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt:
> 
> Avengers - any/any - Four times the answer was 'no' and the one time it was 'yes'.
> 
> http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/342872.html?thread=60689240#t63120728

1) Clint, that's what he said his name was, had taken her from the Red Room. In the space of an hour, the woman who was the Black Widow was free. He'd taken her to a cheap hotel where no one looked twice at a man and a pretty woman. At the desk, he'd looked at her and asked, "Two rooms?" The woman who was the Black Widow couldn't speak. So she just shook her head, 'No.'

2) He took her to Minnesota to recover. They lived in a house in a little neighborhood where children played on the street in the afternoons and hymns drifted from the church on Sundays. Natasha Romanoff had a driver's license with her chosen name for the first time ever. She trained with Clint and learned about SHIELD and passed every test they gave her with flying colors. It didn't stop her from staring out the window in the evenings over the snowy hills towards some distant point. She knew Clint watched her and spitefully hoped that he saw how little control over her he actually had.

In mid-December, on a clear evening, he opened the door. "Tasha," he said in that odd way of his. He called it puppy love. She called him a fool. "Do you want to leave?" The question startled her into looking at him. At his feet was a backpack and pile of cold weather gear much too small for him. He must have gathered it in secret for her, and the SHIELD agents who watched them, not to have known. Now, he laid it out before her, her freedom. Freedom from him, from SHIELD, from anyone who would use her.

"Nyet," she said finally. "I wish you to make me hot cocoa." She pretended that the last part wasn't just to see his smile.

3&4) He'd gotten her a ring. She'd found it his sock drawer the last time she was in his quarters looking for spare throwing knives. It was a small white gold band with a chip of pigeon blood ruby offset by two seed diamonds. Clint Barton wasn't a rich man, but it was still chosen with care.

It was on the nightstand now as they lay among the rough sheets letting sweat cool on their bodies. She rested her ear against his chest to hear the steady beat of the heart she knew she could only break. Clint Barton loved Natasha Romanoff. He loved her in that wild, stupid way people loved the tigers and lions that would eventually kill them. He'd poured himself into the empty, broken places of her until she healed and grew strong. Only, he never took back what he gave, only gave more until she was full again.

The fact she didn't love him only made it harder to say, "No, nyet, Clint. I'm not for marrying," when he showed her the ring.

And maybe he knew her better than she realized. He asked, "Tasha, do you love me?" because he wanted the truth. There were no tears when she confirmed what already terrified him. "That's okay," he told her. Because for him, it was always about her. His love, his body, his mind were just tools for her happiness.

Natasha Romanoff laid her head on Clint Barton's chest and heard his broken heart still beating for her and wished she wasn't a monster.

5) It was only after Loki that she found the strength to let him go. They had both survived being unmade now, and she was terrified that the world would consume what little she'd left of him. Her greed in the beginning had nearly left Clint an empty husk. Still, she'd clung to him like a child to her favorite toy. Maybe it was hearing Loki echoing back what she'd already done to him that made it easier.

Clint had survived the Black Widow and Loki. And, finally, Natasha trusted that buried beneath all those things she'd wanted from him was strength that she'd never know.

She lay on his chest for the last time hearing his heart beat, knowing that it was never broken and he was never empty. He could love her for eternity if he had to. That endless cycle of loving and gaining strength from loving supporting him. However, it was not a happy way to live, and Natasha had grown up enough to wish him happy as well as strong.

He knew her too well though, and he still (always) would love her to the point of destruction. So he asked the question she couldn't. "Tasha, do you want to leave me?"

She hid her tears in his shoulder when she answered, "Da."


End file.
